
Author 



Title 



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18 — 47372-2 *ro 



INTRODUCTION to the GENETIC 
TREATMENT of the FAITH- 
CONSCIOUSNESS in the 
INDIVIDUAL 



BY 

WILLIAM WILBERFORCE COSTIN 



A DISSERTATION 

Submitted to the Board of University Studies of the Johns Hopkin 
University in conformity with the requirements for the 
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 



WILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY 

BALTIMORE 

1909 






Copyright, 1909 

BY 

William Wilberforce Costin 



.'09 



PART I 
NON-RELIGIOUS FAITH 



Prefatory Note. 

The object of this dissertation is to carry into a new field, 
that of the religious; the method of approach known as the 
"Genetic Method," which has become so fruitful in the hands of 
contemporary psychologists and logicians. 

w. w. c. 



CONTENTS. 
Part I. 

NON-RELIGIOUS FAITH. 

Chapter I Genesis of the Faith Consciousness or Pre- 

Logical Faith: Presumption 7-13 

Chapter II Practical or Quasi-Logical Faith: Assump- 
tion . 14-18 

Chapter III Rational or Logical Faith: Presupposition 

and Belief 19-21 

Chapter IV Ideal Faith: Postulation 22-31 

Chapter V Mystic and Hyper-Logical Faith. I Mys- 
tic Faith: Contemplation. II Hyper- 
Logical Faith: The Hyper - Logical 
Experience as Union of Faith and 
Knowledge 32-43 

Part II. 

RELIGIOUS FAITH. 

Appendix I (presenting a brief abstract of Part II.) . . . 44-45 

Part III. 

THE FAITH PRINCIPLE IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 

(Omitted.) 
Life 46-47 



Part I 

NON-RELIGIOUS FAITH 

CHAPTER I 

GENESIS OF THE FAITH-CONSCIOUSNESS 

OR 

PRE-LOGICAL FAITH: PRESUMPTION 

By the faith-consciousness 1 is meant the conscious act and con- 
tent of faith. The act of faith is consciousness functioning 
according to the demand of the faith-stimulus. Faith as act is 
that condition in which mental objects possess the interest and 
significance that make them worthy of acknowledgment, con- 
sideration and trust. Faith as content from the psychological 
point of view comprises those activities and mental states result- 
ing from the above condition over against which consciousness 
sets itself. 

Our first interest is not so much in the functioning of the faith- 
consciousness as in the consideration of what constitutes the 
content and genesis of the same. We pass to that considera- 
tion. 

There can be no adequate psychological study of the faith 
principle without raising the question of its genesis. Where in 
the psychic movement does there appear anything resembling 
that which in mature consciousness we call faith? In attempt- 
ing to answer this question we shall seek by comparative analysis 
of the various functions of the primary consciousness to set in 
bold relief a psychic process or principle which would seem funda- 
mentally to resemble the psychological principle of mature faith. 
In making this analysis we begin with the cognitive function. 

1 For a study of the nature of consciousness, see Baldwin, Handbook of 
Psy. Senses and Intellect, pp. 43-45. 



8 The Faith Consciousness 

Mere reaction against external action is not an adequate de- 
scription of the cognitive process. A mere hitting-back move- 
ment could never produce meaning. A reaction, to have cog- 
nitive value, must be that of an inner movement or control which 
gives it direction, and for which the result is meaning. Such a 
control would indicate a cognitive consciousness. Cognition, 
then, is that activity in the psychic process which accepts and 
unifies the impression made by stimulation, and constructs it 
into meaning, thereby constituting it knowledge for the reacting 
consciousness. Thus we are able to distinguish between cog- 
nitive process and cognitive content or knowledge. 1 

Feeling: The bombardment of consciousness by external 
action is something first of all felt. The feeling produced by such 
an attack is instantly followed by reaction. And the reaction 
process itself again stimulates feeling. This is true also of the 
presence of cognitive content or knowledge in consciousness. 
It produces an affection of the self, 2 an affection which in turn is 
the index or sign of at least an emotional valuation given by 
consciousness to the constructs of all conscious activity. 

Will: Every state of consciousness is the embodiment of a 
mental process. 3 Even reflex action is the expression of activity. 
There could be no such action without a psychic process. This 
and the other activities of mind necessary for attention, feeling 
and knowing, together with the power of conscious control 
within limits, 4 characterize will. 

The process, the genesis of which we are seeking, will gradually 
emerge, as we analyze and compare it with the aspects of con- 
sciousness sketched above. But first let us compare these activ- 
ities with each other as to their genesis. 

Prof. Dewey says, "that, first, feeling is necessary, for unless 
the mind were affected in some way by the object or the truth, 



Cowrie, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, p. 9. "Thought may- 
signify the mental activity, and it may signify the contents grasped through 
that activity. " 

2 See Dewey, Psy., p. 16. 

3 Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, p. 38. 
1 Bowne, Psy., p. 222. 



Pre-Logical Faith: Presumption 9 

unless it had some interest in them, it would never direct itself 
to them, would not pay attention to them, and they would not 
come within its sphere of knowledge at all." 1 

To apprehend feeling is a cognitive act as seen in the unifying 
process which sets it up, and recognizes it as such. Besides, feel- 
ing for, or interest in, a thing, or the truth, carries the attention 
and results in its cognition. But the attention involved a proc- 
ess of conation; so that the relative position in which these 
three aspects of consciousness stand as respects dependence 
would be feeling, will, cognition. That is, taking the construc- 
tive act of setting up feeling as cognition. 

We come now to the genesis of the faith principle. Faith has 
no meaning without an object, so that will and feeling must pre- 
cede the process. In order better to understand these conditions 
and the resulting significance of the faith principle, let us take 
for illustration, some object of cognition, say the child and its 
bottle. The nurse, with the bottle, appears and disappears. 
The child sees the bottle for a moment but is soon disappointed. 
What is the psychic state of the child's consciousness until it 
appears again? 

Many elements enter in to complicate the situation. Cogni- 
tion has done its work in constructing the object. As knowl- 
edge it is accompanied by a state of feeling, an affection of self; 
it comes to have value, worth, significance for consciousness. 
Interest is aroused. 2 But the object has disappeared. What 
does the child do? After a moment of restless disappointment, 
it gives itself up to the situation, in the spirit of blind surrender 
to the object, to watch and wait for its return. The psychic sig- 
nificance of the attitude thus assumed involves the problem 
of the faith principle. We pass to the consideration of that 
significance. 

In the pre-logical mode consciousness may be characterized as 
respects its attitude in its control of a given content as a "pre- 
sumption of existence, control, or reality;" 3 and over against 

1 Dewey, Psy., p. 18. 

2 Baldwin, Handbook of Psy. Feeling and Will, p. 139, on Nature of Interest. 

3 Baldwin, Thought and Things, Vol. II, p. 11. 



10 The Faith Consciousness 

this, " assumption" — the contrasted attitude towards what is 
not presumed, but is made " schematic for further determina- 
tion." 1 The psychic significance of the attitude of conscious- 
ness while waiting and watching for the return of the absent object 
involves the principle of "presumption," i.e., consciousness 
" presumes its existence and availability in the world of its prac- 
tical interests. " 2 The attitude thus characterized may be called 
"presumptive faith." 

We have seen that cognition, feeling and will, construct, attend 
and give conscious value to the object. These activities spring 
up the moment the stimulating conditions are present. It is not 
even necessary, in order to arouse these activities, that the object 
be familiar. A stimulus flashed into consciousness for the first 
time, will stimulate reaction, arouse interest, and result in cog- 
nition. The attitude of consciousness toward an unfamiliar 
and persisting object, has in it at least two elements of the faith 
principle, namely, Interest and Surrender. 

Interest once aroused in the object persists so long as the object 
persists, that is, if the object has any significance for conscious- 
ness. But in addition to, and along with, persisting interest 
in a persisting object, we have the attitude of consideration or 
sustained interest — the unreflective attitude of primary contem- 
plation or first immediacy. The considering consciousness has in 
it the element of knowing. It persists in seeing progressive, 
enriching, enlarging, and changing meaning in the object. This 
attitude of concentrated interest in the object is an attitude in 
which consciousness goes out, in a process of grasping and indi- 
viduating the object as a unit. 

Interest as acceptance is akin to logical acknowledgment. It 
is an element in presumption (or reality-feeling). In the pre- 
logical consciousness it is what "belief" is in the logical. 

The second element of the faith principle is surrender. The 
object, in yielding up its meaning, must arouse sufficient interest 
to make it worth while for consciousness to concentrate upon it. 

1 Ibid., p. 11. 

2 Ibid., p. 12. 



Pre-Logical Faith: Presumption 11 

But this attitude when once assumed, involving the considering 
consciousness, includes in its activities the process of surrender. 

Surrender, as here used, is an act of the will, but it is something 
more. It is will not only in the sense that all conscious process 
is will or activity, but it is a definite act of will. It is an act, 
however, which rests upon meaning as its stimulus. It is the 
process involved in consideration; not the process that wills to 
consider, but the process which gives itself over under the pres- 
sure of meaning, 1 value, significance, in the thing considered. 
It is a resting of the entire self upon the object. The thing be- 
comes fulfillment or end-state. Meaning becomes so trustworthy 
and significant, and seems to guarantee so much, that conscious- 
ness falls upon it, and confidently rests and reposes in it as 
something having value and worth while. But all this is in the 
presence of a persisting object. This is the second element of 
presumption. 

Take now the case where the object does not persist, as that 
of the disappearance of the nurse and the bottle. A new situa- 
tion confronts us, and new elements manifest themselves. With 
a persisting object the function of memory is unnecessary, unless 
we say that continuous recognition involves memory. But with 
a passing and shifting object, memory is indispensable. There 
could be no recognition of the object, when it reappears, without 
memory. And there could be no image formed of the object 
without it. So that when the object disappears, consciousness 
is able to reproduce it in memory. It is this image object for 
the original of which consciousness with great interest waits and 
watches. 

The element of "absence" entering into the situation, pro- 
duces a different state of consciousness from that of the persist- 
ing object. If the meaning has sufficient significance to guaran- 
tee " absent treatment/' consciousness, remembering and imag- 
ing the object and feeling its worth, makes, as in the case of the 
persisting object, a surrender of itself to it as imaged, and waits 

1 On rise of psychic meanings; Baldwin, Thought and Things or Genetic 
Logic, Vol. I, p. 130; a work upon which many of the psychological posi- 
tions of this paper are based. 



12 The Faith Consciousness 

patiently and intently for its reappearance. The act of sur- 
render to an object, with all that that involves as compared with 
the similar process when the object persists, is the further ele- 
ment of the faith principle. The process here is more than sim- 
ply will. The absence of the object gives rise to the " trustful" 
state of consciousness. Trust is produced. Confidence or 
" trust" in the unseen object, impelling consciousness to take 
the attitude of surrender, of waiting and watching for its return, 
along with the interest necessary to stimulate the process, is the 
first mode of faith characterized by " presumption." 

In " trust" there are two elements (1) trust in the conversion 
value of the image, corresponding to the " interest" element in 
faith, and (2) trust in the satisfying or worthful character of con- 
tent, corresponding to surrender; so that " trust" shows the same 
two factors in the image mode. It requires on the cognitive side 
what Prof. Baldwin has described as the " remote sameness" 
meaning. 1 

The faith principle takes its rise in the lowest levels of con- 
sciousness, as seen in the fact that certain of its elements appear 
in advance of the memory function. This is true even on the 
theory that memory is involved in continuous recognition. For 
before recognition is possible, interest must be aroused, while 
it in turn is followed by reaction. But the element of faith which 
appears as the result of embarrassment on the part of conscious- 
ness in its endeavor to relate itself to the absent object, takes its 
rise in consciousness, after the image has been lifted from the 
material object, and, by memory, recognized as in some sense the 
copy of the same. The reposeful, trustful state of consciousness, 
involving confidence in the absent and unseen, is not possible 
until consciousness has passed into the higher mode of memory. 
But even this is placing the genesis of faith at a very low level 
in the development of consciousness. 

Faith at this level attaches to " foreign" control. 2 The mind 
under the pressure of meaning goes direct to the object, or, rather, 



1 Baldwin, Thought and Things, Vol. I, p. 156. 

2 On the Notion of Control, Ibid., p. 57. 



Pre-Logical Faith: Presumption 13 

to where it is expected to reappear. Everything in consciousness 
at this stage is becoming external. If left to itself, conscious- 
ness instantly seeks its object, in order to entwine itself about it, 
and find satisfaction in the enfoldment. Consciousness is under 
its control. The power to constitute the object something for 
consciousness in the sense of setting it up at will, for thought and 
consideration, is not yet developed. Faith at this stage is ration- 
ally blind — it " presumes." 

It is to be noted, therefore, that there is a difference between 
this simple or first consciousness, which is mere apprehension, 
and the consciousness of contemplation or the higher mode of 
immediacy. The contemplative consciousness at this stage is, 
not conscious that it is contemplating. It lacks the power to set 
up, as an object of thought, this fact or process and also the com- 
plex content of the logical mode for contemplation. There is no 
consciousness either of a distinction between the self which con- 
templates and the object contemplated. The dualism of sub- 
ject-object has not yet sprung up. There is lacking also the 
power of judgment, and the capacity for rational determination 
within the content of consciousness. It may be said that con- 
sciousness at this level is in the pre-logical mode, lacking all the 
powers that go to make up the logical function. The principle, 
therefore, the genesis of which we are seeking, may be called 
pre-logical faith or Presumption. 



CHAPTER II 

PRACTICAL OR QUASI-LOGICAL FAITH: ASSUMPTION 

The expression "quasi-logical faith" may be better understood 
as we consider the general movement of consciousness through- 
out this section of its progressions, and note the larger charac- 
teristics of other phases. Consciousness viewed from the genetic 
standpoint is seen to be not something static and fixed, but an 
organized vital psychic process of action and reaction against 
stimulus to its own internal advantage developmentally and 
experimentally. Consciousness thought of as thus growing, 
expanding and enriching itself takes to itself direction, and 
makes for itself a history. The study of consciousness through- 
out the highway of its procession, and byway of its history is the 
work of Genetic Logic and Psychology. Throughout this ever 
expanding movement may be traced the vital strands of its 
being which taken together constitute longitudinally at least its 
inner fiber and structure. A study of the genesis of conscious 
elements is first of all an investigation as to the source, rooting 
and rise of the fibers constituting the strandlike structure of 
consciousness. 

In order to clearness it is necessary to explain that what we 
are calling the " strands of consciounsess" are in turn for pur- 
poses of analysis thought of as each constituting a separate mode 
of consciousness. Thus we may speak of the moral, aesthetic, 
cognitive, religious, emotional, volitional or faith-consciousness. 
That is to say when we find consciousness functioning habitually 
in a particular way — in such a way as can be definitely charac- 
terized and studied throughout the histoiy of that process we 
call it a consciousness of this or that particular kind or mode. 
Thus we find justification for the use of the term " faith-conscious- 
ness. " It is the study of a mode of consciousness theoretically 



Quasi-Logical Faith: Assumption 15 

within the whole of consciousness and yet not actually separable 
from the whole; for after all consciousness functions as a unit; 1 it 
is the one and the same consciousness functioning now as moral, 
now as aesthetic, now as religious, etc. The identity is not in the 
process but in the quality characteristic of each process. For 
example when consciousness in its functioning has the quality 
or character of faith we call it a faith-consciousness; when it has 
the quality of cognition we call it a cognitive consciousness. 

When the particular consciousness which we are analyzing 
out has made a beginning and a history for itself through growth, 
we call with Baldwin the distance covered in its development a 
progression; and this taken together with its beginning as a gen- 
esis may be designated in its entirety as a genetic progression. 
Still further by way of definition it may be said that when in any 
progression we come to a point where a new character appears 
and thereafter a new and distinctive quality is given to conscious- 
ness that the section of the progression thus formed is a mode and 
that the transition made from what went before into the new 
character is a modal transition or genesis. 2 In the genetic treat- 
ment of the strands of consciousness it is usually found that the 
conscious fibers of one mode have their roots in the preceding 
mode, or even run back through all preceding modes into the 
foundation soil of consciousness itself. Minor growths or enlarge- 
ments within the mode may be called " progressions. " 

Above we suggested that a glance at some other phase of con- 
sciousness might be of help in understanding the meaning of the 
mode into which the faith-consciousness has now passed. Take 
for example the cognitive consciousness considered from the side 
of logical meaning. There would first of all be the pre-logical 
mode; that phase of the cognitive consciousness apparently 
destitute of logical meaning although the roots of the logical 
might be present. The objects cognized by consciousness in this 
state could only be those of sense and memory. From the pre- 

1 See Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, p. 22. 

2 See Baldwin, Development and Evolution, Chap. XIX, "The Theory 
of Genetic Modes;" also Thought and Things, Vol. I, for the positions 
immediately following. 



16 The Faith Consciousness 

logical the passage is made into the quasi-logical mode. Here 
the objects cognized are those of fancy, make-believe, and sub- 
stantive objects. In order to clearness as to what is meant by 
the quasi-logical mode of the cognitive consciousness let us take 
one of these objects of determination and analyze it in its rela- 
tions both from beneath and from above, from the logical as well 
as from the pre-logical point of view. Take for example the 
make-believe determination as set forth in play. Here we have 
a construction of the imagination aided by memory of a situation 
which in part is suggested by real life — herein imitative — but 
at the same time is consciously unreal. 

While the play situation is consciously recognized as unreal 
it may be said to be under psychic control, and to be psychically 
or inwardly determined. But so soon as the play is fairly under 
way and consciousness looses itself in the spirit of the game the 
situation for the time seems real and all psychic control is with- 
drawn. But now and then in the midst of the excitement the 
player realizes that after all it is only play, and yields to it as a 
" conscious self-illusion." In this we see what is called in the 
cognitive consciousness the quasi-logical mode. Here is the 
element of the pre-logical, where all logical determination is 
withdrawn, and at the same time the logical, where conscious 
content is more or less under the control peculiar to the self. 
With this process in mind we are better able to understand the 
meaning of the quasi-logical mode of the faith-consciousness. 
We pass to the further consideration of that mode. 

The tendency of consciousness, observed from the beginning 
to go direct to its object is maintained throughout the life of the 
individual. It is only after persistent endeavor and laborious 
lifting of thought from its object that consciousness comes to 
realize its right and power to push and hold off from itself for 
purposes of thought and consideration its various mental con- 
structs. These two roads indicating the direction and move- 
ment of consciousness in its development branch from a com- 
mon point located in the lower levels of psychic progression. 
Within these overlapping spheres of conscious content are to be 
found certain forms of the faith principle. The first of which 



Quasi-Logical Faith: Assumption 17 

may be considered under the head of "practical faith." By 
this we mean that principle which enables the individual to so 
relate himself to things and persons and to the constituted order 
of his environment as to guarantee the ongoing of his life with as 
little friction and embarrassment as possible. In order to fix 
with any degree of certainty the content and setting of this prin- 
ciple other related topics should have due consideration. We 
pass to the determination of these considerations and principles 
in their relation to faith. 

Impulse -} An impulse is the onward pressure of ideas, feelings 
or perceptions as states of consciousness showing itself in activ- 
ity, as in producing some external physical change. An instinc- 
tive impulse is the feeling on the part of consciousness of being 
impelled to act without knowing the end to be realized yet with 
the power to select the proper means for its accomplishment. 2 
While impulse is not faith it is so closely related to it in this mode 
as to supply the dynamic of the principle in its practical use. 
It often compels the exercise of faith as when one trusts another 
or some situation on no other ground than that of instinctive 
impulse. Much of the world's work is done through the dynamic 
of these combined principles. It leads to the " assumption" of 
the persistence and satisfying quality of the object. In the pre- 
logical mode we found the attitude of assumption "to be the use 
of a meaning in a control and with a reference that is not yet estab- 
lished, not yet a ' presumption/ " In this mode — the quasi- 
logical — there is not only present "pre-logical assumption," but 
logical as well, as existence or "reality" meaning. 3 

Sympathy: In sympathy consciousness identifies with itself 
the experiences of others, The mere fact of living in the psy- 
chical atmosphere of social intercourse will produce sympathy. 
Consciousness apprehends the feelings of others and reproduces 
them in itself, at the same time forgetting self and remembering 
that they are the feelings of others. 4 Sympathy is not faith, 

1 See Hoffding, Outlines of Psy., pp. 235-256. 

2 See Dewey, Psy., 353. 

3 See Baldwin, Thought and Things, Vol. II, pp. 11-12. 

4 Ibid., pp. 329-330. 



18 The Faith Consciousness 

but as between men it is a strong bond of union and readily 
becomes the occasion for the exercise of it. Often men have faith 
in each other and in their schemes and inventions purely out of 
personal sympathy for each other. The faith of sympathy is a 
practical force of far-reaching influence. 

Desire : While desire is not impulse it is often a development 
from it. Impulse has no presentation of the end to which it goes 
straight and blindly. But desire has. 1 An impulsive act repeat- 
edly performed resulting in a pleasurable state of consciousness 
creates a desire for the repetition of the same or similar experience. 
This implies a consciousness that is able to project itself into the 
future and to apprehend the difference between a future or pos- 
sible state of consciousness and its actual experience. It is a 
consciousness that knows it has impulses, and as a form of pleas- 
urable action sets before itself the satisfaction of them. The 
tendency to realize desires often results in the taking of great 
risks and in pressing into service the function of faith for no other 
reason than that of personal gratification. The faith of impulse, 
sympathy, desire, implies a consciousness the content of which 
involves a play back and forth as between rational determination 
on the one hand, and a blind undiscriminating outgoing of spirit 
on the other. This quality of consciousness may be character- 
ized as quasi-logical, i.e., partly deliberate and rational, but at 
the same time undetermined in part and rationally blind in its 
ongoing and purpose. Such a principle may be called quasi- 
logical faith or assumption. It " assumes' ' beyond what it is 
entitled either to "presume" or " believe. " 

1 See Dewey, Psy., p. 360. 



CHAPTER III. 

RATIONAL OR LOGICAL FAITH: PRESUPPOSITION AND BELIEF. 

Another form of the faith principle found in the over-lapping 
spheres of conscious content is rational faith. Faith may be said 
to be rational when it rests upon the deductions of reason or 
involves a process of judgment. We have seen that there is a 
faith that trusts everything and everyone, taking on an attitude 
of presumption. In this consciousness loses itself in its object. 
All logical considerations are either not present or are set aside 
under the stress of a passion which finds satisfaction only in 
burying itself in the object of its pursuit. This kind of faith is 
found not only in the pre-logical state of consciousness where the 
logical function has not yet appeared, but often also in mature 
consciousness where the capacity for reflection is possible but is 
not exercised or controlled. We have seen pre-logical faith pass 
into that state of conscious progression where consciousness in 
the process of becoming comes to be more and more capable of 
self-determination, with view to ends, but not altogether so. 
This we call the quasi-logical state of the faith-consciousness. 
It " assumes' ' what it cannot " presume." From this the pas- 
sage is made more or less laboriously into the logical mode. We 
say " laboriously" because the popular and easy road is that of 
the quasi-logical mode, although the way is open for the use of 
the judgment. Consciousness in passing from the pre-logical 
to the quasi-logical mode undergoes a change not merely in 
expansion but in the germination of a new function, namely, 
the judgment; whereas the passage from the quasi-logical to the 
logical state of consciousness involves the addition of nothing 
wholly new but rather the development of what already is germi- 
nally there. So that the difference between quasi-logical and 
logical faith resolves itself into the question of the quantity of 
rational determination absent or present in any one conscious- 



20 The Faith Consciousness 

ness. In approaching the question of rational faith certain funda- 
mental considerations are involved. 

There is a faith the ground of which is not rationally deter- 
mined and yet is probably possessed only by a rational conscious- 
ness. It is the faith, consciousness has in itself. No reasoning 
is necessary to induce consciousness to have faith in itself and 
yet only a reflecting consciousness is capable of selecting out and 
setting up that fact as part of its content or meaning. There is a 
faith also in self-consciousness that needs not the support of 
rational determination. Self-consciousness is self-knowledge 
not indeed without reflection, but as the presupposition of the 
mode of reflection. Self-knowledge is a kind of knowledge of the 
self that simply wells up within one without having to pass 
through the categories of thought. It is the consciousness of the 
inner control and direction of thought. Another kind of knowl- 
edge of the self is that which comes through reflection. 1 It 
objectifies the self and makes it content of judgment. The faith 
or presupposition here involved is of the type of presumption as 
it is developed in the mode of reflection. It requires, however, 
a reflective consciousness to see that an act of faith is involved. 
This shows that the subject-self is presupposed just by the act 
of judgment that affirms the object-self. The same is true of 
our knowledge of persons and the world. Reflection shows clearly 
that our knowledge of a person is purely and only a mental con- 
struct. 2 How then do we know that the subject-person and the 
mental construct or object-person correspond? And yet we do 
not hesitate a moment, but act at once on the faith that they 
do seeing that one is the function that constitutes the other. 
The same holds true when the principle is applied to the world. 
Every mind constructs for itself its own world. The world that 
is phenomenally real, to us is a mental construct. But we believe 
that there is also an actually real world and that there is some 
kind of correspondence between the two. 3 The real world is 
presupposed by judgment as a control sphere just as the subject 

1 See Baldwin, Handbook, Senses and Intellect, p. 144. 

2 See Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, pp. 309-310. 

3 See Bowne, Metaphysics, pp. 16-17. 



Logical Faith: Presupposition and Belief 21 

is. We never think, however, of making this distinction in 
practical life, and, therefore, the faith-process involved is never 
recognized. Consciousness must be reflective in order to see 
the process while the faith involved is spontaneous. 

What is "presumed" in the pre-logical and "assumed" in the 
quasi-logical is presupposed in the logical. The case is some- 
thing different, however, when we come to contemplate the Abso- 
lute. The difference is in this: The mind is compelled to con- 
struct the world because it lives in it, on the basis of fact and 
truth but the Absolute we are not compelled to construct under 
like limitations. It is an ideal construction making "postula- 
tion" beyond experience. It requires an act of faith to believe 
that there is a correspondence between the Infinite and the men- 
tal concept. It is evident again that this is the same kind of 
faith as that called "trust" above. 

By rational faith is meant that whenever faith is used we always 
have an adequate reason for its use. The reason for faith may 
not always be in consciousness when faith is employed. A mem- 
ory of the same may suffice many times, but rational faith must 
have somewhere in consciousness a basis in judgment. Illus- 
trations of rationally determined faith are all about us in life. 
A person has faith in another because he "knows" him. We 
have faith in the system because we have tested it and "know" 
it. The man of science has faith that his theory will hold even 
where he cannot experiment, because it seems reasonable, and 
held good where experimentation was possible. The chief motive 
of philosophy is its absolute faith in the unity of the whole, and 
that somewhere in the universe there is light, and that at the 
center everything is transparently clear to reason. From the 
first philosophy has been looking for plan and purpose in things 
with the faith that the universe is not destitute of them, and for 
good reasons. 

Another term for rationally determined faith is belief. An 
interesting study is that of the distinction between knowledge 
and belief. But this we pass over at this time. Our aim here 
is simply to show that there is what we are calling the rational 
or logical mode of the faith-consciousness in which the whole 
believed implicates our "presuppositions" of belief. 



CHAPTER IV. 



ideal faith: postulation. 



The ideal element in perception and memory attaches to the 
meaning of the perceived or remembered thing. It is tied down 
to some particular existence and cannot be freed until the mode 
of construction known as creative imagination lifts the ideal 
element from its connection and treats it with reference to its 
own significance and value, disregarding the concrete existence 
of the thing. Creative imagination liberates the idea from its 
accidental connections and as a universalizing activity reveals 
it in its nature as independent of varying concomitants. 

While the idealizing activity of imagination is involved in con- 
scious construction ideals as such are not constructions, as they 
are not describable. Ideal productions, as vague ends set up 
for pursuit, are elements of meaning attaching to present images. 
They are of the nature of interest. They have the distinguish- 
ing characters of the good, the beautiful and the true; to the 
religious ideal there attaches, in addition, the moral or ethical 
determinations inducing the sense of obligation and dependence. 
The psychic disposition to pursue identities through the con- 
nections of new determinations results in the setting up of the 
abstraction by which conception proceeds. The realization of 
the pursuit of identities involved, gives rise to a feeling of appre- 
ciation whenever desperate elements of experience " fall together 
in a unity of common meaning. >n The unifying process accom- 
panied by appreciation or gratification is necessary in order to 
abstraction. One of the elements of conceptual feeling, therefore, 
attaching to abstraction "may be best characterized as the feel- 
ing of unity in a whole. " 2 

1 Baldwin, Handbook of Psy., Feeling and Will, p. 200. 
1 Ibid. 



Ideal Faith: Postulation 23 

Through the process of abstraction the concept is set up as a 
positive construction, at the expense and neglect, however, of 
all experience ineligible for illustration. In generalization we 
have an opposite but equally important aspect of conception. 
Consciousness modifies conceptual content in extending its 
application to cover its accepted conscious experience. General- 
ization is a psychic process toward variety tending away from 
identity. The gratification of these tendencies from identity to 
variety results in a conceptual feeling which may be characterized 
as that of the harmony of parts. 

The conscious value of a concept in experience yields an aspect 
of feeling begotten of intension, as over against extension, " which 
excites only a feeling of its present accidental application." 1 
The emotion aroused by the process of intension is the " feeling 
for meaning. " 

Ideals have attached to them a kind of objectivity which may 
be called presentative as present in imagination; and also the 
same reality-coefficient attaching to every one, as not present 
in imagination. These aspects of conceptional emotion may be 
characterized as the feeling of universality. 

Taking the four ingredients of conceptual feeling sketched 
above, Ideals may be defined, "as the forms which we feel our 
conceptions would take if we were able to realize in them a satis- 
fying degree of unity, harmony, significance and universality/' 2 

The conceptual feeling involved in ideal construction carries 
with it a determination which has the force of belief — a deter- 
mination which may be characterized as Ideal Faith. 

Consciousness in the ideal-faith mode goes beyond the content 
of reflection in an acceptance, on the basis of "trust," of the 
remote, when it is not fully guaranteed by thought. This out- 
come results from the growth of ideal and universal meaning. 
The attitude of consciousness involved is postulation; it is related 
to presupposition as assumption is to presumption. In assump- 

1 Ibid. 

2 Baldwin, Handbook of Psy., pp. 201-202, also Thought and Things, Vol. 
I, pp. 234-238 on Ideal Meaning, and Vol. II, on Postulation, etc., as 
presented below. 



24 The Faith Consciousness 

tion consciousness determines a construction of which the main 
element of meaning is that it has not been found real but is set 
up, accepted and acted upon as though it were real. Meaning 
is ejected into a control sphere in which there is little or no reality 
correspondence ; it is made to attach to the construction — by the 
ipse dixit of consciousness — when in fact it is out of its proper 
realm. Relations of coordination and interconnection as attach- 
ing to the meaning are forced into the situation to satisfy the 
conscious impulse of the moment. The principle of assumption 
may be illustrated by the child and his toy-dog: "When the 
child goes through the process of feeding his toy-dog, he ' assumes' 
a sphere that he does not regularly ' presume.' " In presumption 
consciousness acts upon the principle that reality is what the 
meaning indicates, and reads into reality only such meaning as 
the pre-determined meaning of reality will justify. "That 
attitude whereby the meaning is recognized as determined for 
what it is, gives what we may call a ' presumption ' of existence, 
control, or reality. The meaning is depended upon or expected 
to have its own appropriate coefficients, its own 'real' value; 
but the aspect that constitutes it thus 'real' is not isolated or 
asserted, as a separate element of meaning. When a child, for 
example, cries for an object in the next room, he 'presumes' its 
existence and availability in the world of his practical interests. " 

W T e have said that postulation is related to presupposition in 
the logical mode as assumption is to presumption in the pre- 
logical. Postulation is a schematic meaning in the logical mode. 
Reality treated in a schematic way may be said to be postulated ; 
the postulated meaning thus set up is a logical assumption. Pre- 
supposition on the other hand is an attitude of logical presump- 
tion or acceptance. " It is that determinate sphere of reference 
and control which attaches to the whole disjunctive meaning. 
It is the sphere which is accepted and acknowledged as that in 
which the disjunction stated in the subject-matter is finally to 
be resolved." 

In determining the content of ideal faith the material is sub- 
sumed under the form of postulation. The various ideals — 
truth, goodness, "ideas of reason" — arc thought as developments 



Ideal Faith: Postulation 25 

in the form of postulation of assumptive or schematic meaning. 
We shall see in the schematic rendering necessary for the pro- 
duction of the " agreement of relations" we call truth that the 
principle of postulation performs an important role. The deter- 
mination of truth as an element in the content of ideal faith 
necessitates the consideration of other principles. 

The fundamental question of speculation is: What is reality? 
Psychologically considered the question would be: What is 
meant by the "sense" of reality? Ideas to which reality is 
attributed and those to which it is not, have the effect in conscious- 
ness of producing respectively the feeling of reality, and the 
feeling of unreality. Reality-feeling at the earliest stage of 
conscious development is simply " feeling" — feeling without 
meaning of any kind. "Consciousness is filled with affective 
sensational happenings." Reality-feeling, however, is not be- 
lief. There is a distinction between the feeling of reality and 
belief. "The phrase reality-feeling denotes the fundamental 
modification of consciousness which attaches to the presentative 
side of sensational states — the feeling which means, as the child 
afterwards learns, that an object is really there. By the word 
belief, on the other hand, we may denote the feeling which 
attaches to what may be a secondary or representative state of 
mind, and indicates the amount of assurance we have at the time 
that an object is there. The idea which has the reality-feeling 
may be said to have its own guarantee of its reality; it is a given, 
and my feeling of it is direct acquaintance with it. But the idea 
to which belief attaches is guaranteed by some other mental 
state, by what I know about it, or by its connection with ideas 
already guaranteed." 1 

Unreality-feeling takes its rise in an experience quite different 
from the feeling of reality. Impulse and appetite rise in conscious- 
ness as simply feeling but make sharp demands upon the sensi- 
bility. Presence-feeling — as in taste and touch — is readily con- 
nected with the feeling of absence, as when the stimulus is with- 
drawn. The mere feeling of the absence of that which is neces- 

1 Baldwin, Handbook, Feeling and Will, p. 149. 



26 The Faith Consciousness 

sary to satisfy makes the impression upon consciousness of 
unreality. Unreality-feeling, however, is not the "negation of 
belief;" it does not rise as the contradiction of reality. It is not 
the result of conflict, but takes its rise in natural impulse. There 
are degrees of unreality — as well of reality-feeling. The reality 
feeling attaching to food is more intense in time of hunger than 
of complete satisfaction. Every consciousness postulates for 
itself realities of varying degree. The postulation of the true as 
the real and eternal as over against that which is unreal and 
temporal has an abiding significance for consciousness. Such 
a reality — ideal reality — readily becomes the object of faith. A 
reality corresponding to truth may be thought in the schematic 
meaning of this mode as an assumptive postulate of the faith- 
consciousness. Not to go into the various processes by which 
truth thus considered is finally determined, it will suffice to pre- 
sent the outcome, by way of definition, of the development of the 
principle. " Truth is a relative conversion of the contents of 
social acceptance into the facts of a system of external controls. 
Socially considered truth has an existential reference that is not 
removed by the statements of social desiderata." 1 Again, "the 
true is simply the body of knowledge, acknowledged as belonging 
where it does in a consistently controlled context. The char- 
acters of truth are those attaching to the content of judgment as 
being under mediate control. The meaning of truth is its intent 
to mediate the original sphere of existence meaning in which it 
arose." 2 "Truth is a system of objective contents set up and 
acknowledged as under a variety of coefficients of control; this 
system is socially derived and socially valid, though rendered by 
acts of individual judgment; the whole movement issues in a 
dualism of self -acknowledging and objects-acknowledged, a 
dualism from which thought as such cannot free itself." 3 
Truth as thus defined when once set up and acknowledged as 
such readilypasses into an abiding postulate of a reality accepted 
by faith. 

1 Baldwin, On Truth, Psy. Rev., July, 1907, p. 283. 

'Ibid., p. 287. 

3 Ibid., Note 2, p. 287. 



Ideal Faith: Postulation 27 

Goodness as an ideal construction gets its determination also 
through the postulation of the faith-consciousness. The ideal 
of consciousness, that, somehow, at the heart of things there 
must be, not only truth, but goodness as well, is a postulate of 
faith upon which consciousness acts with a high degree of cer- 
tainty. There is no rest in the thought that everything is bad; 
so that consciousness in lieu of discovering the good, postulates, 
as a working ideal, goodness at the center of things, and has the 
faith that all things rest upon goodness as ultimate ground. 

Other ideal constructions which may be thought as postulates 
of the faith-consciousness are what Kant calls the " ideas of rea- 
son" — "the ego, considered merely as a thinking nature or soul; 
the conception of the Universe; and the one and all-sufficient 
cause of all cosmological series, in other words, the idea of God." 1 

"The notion of self, like all other notions, is a gradual growth." 2 
We defer, however, the consideration of the development of the 
self as content, but enquire concerning the status of the control- 
self as an assumptive postulate of the faith-consciousness. The 
notion of the self as content is constructed upon the basis of 
empirical data, while that of the control-self is an ideal construc- 
tion existentially postulated as the " subject-agent" or " inner 
control" of consciousness giving direction and organization to 
experience. Kant says concerning the control-self that it is, 
"the rational conception or idea of a simple substance which is 
in itself unchangeable, possessing personal identity, and in con- 
nection with other real things external to it." "But," he says, 
"the real aim of reason in this procedure is the attainment of 
principles of systematic unity for the explanation of the phenom- 
ena of the soul. That is, reason desires to be able to represent all 
the determinations of the internal sense, as existing in one sub- 
ject, all powers as deduced from one fundamental power, all 
changes as mere varieties in the condition of a being which is 
permanent and always the same, and all phenomena in space 
as entirely different in their nature from the procedure of 



1 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 417-420. 

2 Baldwin, Handbook, Senses and Intellect, p. 143. 



28 The Faith Consciousness 

thought." 1 And he would have us understand that the best 
way to meet this demand of reason is by " means of such a schema, 
which requires to regard this ideal thing (control-self) as an actual 
existence. " But, "the psychological idea is meaningless and in- 
applicable, " he says, "except as the schema of a regulative con- 
ception." 2 That is, the control-self, whatever else it may be, is 
an ideal postulate of consciousness determined in the interest of 
unity as a regulative principle of reason — schematic, therefore — 
yet a principle in which consciousness may have practical faith. 

Another idea of reason is the conception of the Universe. 
For Kant, "nature is properly the only object presented to us, 
in regard to which reason requires regulative principles." 3 But 
nature is two-fold — "thinking and corporeal nature." This 
two-foldness of nature compels consciousness to postulate 
"nature in general. " "The absolute totality of the series of these 
conditions is an idea, which can never be fully realized in the em- 
pirical exercise of reason, while it is serviceable as a rule for the 
procedure of reason in relation to that totality. " 4 But the notion 
is an ideal construction, regulative, schematic, not constructive 
but postulated as a practical necessity in the interests of ration- 
ality and unity, and worthy of the trust and confidence of the 
faith-consciousness. 

The last idea of reason that need be mentioned is "the all- 
sufficient cause of all cosmological series, the idea of God." 
Consciousness in its contemplation of nature and the universe 
constructs an ideal to satisfy the demand for an all-sufficient 
cause of things. Kant recognizing the urgency for such a con- 
struction says, "The highest formal unity, which is based upon 
ideas alone, is the unity of all things — a unity in accordance 
with an aim or purpose; and the speculative interest of reason 
renders it necessary to regard all order in the world, as if it origi- 
nated from the intention and design of a supreme reason. This 
principle unfolds to the view of reason, in the sphere of experi- 

1 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 418. 

2 Ibid., p. 418. 

3 Ibid., p. 419. 
* Ibid., p. 419. 



Ideal Faith: Postulation 29 

ence, new and enlarged prospects, and invites it to connect the 
phenomena of the world according to teleological laws, and in this 
way to attain to the highest possible degree of systematic unity. 
The hypothesis of a supreme intelligence, as the sole cause of the 
universe — an intelligence which has for us no more than an ideal 
existence, is accordingly always of the greatest service to reason." 1 

The ideal thus constructed, however, is a postulate of faith 
both schematic and regulative. The progressive meaning ejected 
into the ideal of the Absolute on the part of consciousness in its 
effort to adequately satisfy the demand of its developing need 
is considered under the second determination of the faith-con- 
sciousness, namely, Religious Faith. 

Other elements of the content of ideal faith have yet to be 
recognized, namely, the postulation of the absolute as the ideal 
of both truth and appreciation; the postulation of absolute experi- 
ence and its justification; and the postulation of the absolute- 
self or God. 

Consciousness is never content to rest in a dualism. The 
dualistic notion, for example, of an eternal universe as over against 
an eternal God presents an embarrassment to consciousness; 
consciousness seeks to bridge the dualism in a fundamental 
unity. The history of conscious development is that of a pro- 
gression by way of dualistic stages toward the absoluteness of 
conscious experience. In connection with the postulation of the 
absolute as the ideal of truth and appreciation certain dualistic 
experiences demand consideration. 

Consciousness in the logical mode sets up as a dualistic con- 
struction to be acknowledged and judged the control-self as over 
against the empirical-self. The embarrassment of conscious- 
ness thus formed by the presence of a dualism is soon disolved 
in the transition of experience from the logical to the feeling or 
appreciative consciousness. So soon as consciousness takes up 
the terms of the dualism in an experience of feeling and apprecia- 
tion the dualism disolves, and a unity of selfhood is formed. 
That is, for the purposes of thought, the control-self and the 

1 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 420. 



30 The Faith Consciousness 

empirical-self may be set over against each other; but all the 
while — or whenever it attends to it — consciousness has the feel- 
ing that these selves are nothing more than itself functioning now 
in this way and now in that. It is, however, in feeling only that 
the dualism is transcended ; as soon as the logical consciousness 
is invoked the dualistic embarrassment reappears. 

Another form of dualistic experience is the situation necessi- 
tated by consciousness in getting knowledge of the world of 
objects. The world of objects appears in consciousness as con- 
tent over against which consciousness sets itself as control giving 
direction and organization to it as experience. The organization 
thus formed in experience is truth; and the dualistic experi- 
ence set up is that of the logical determination of conscious- 
ness over against the world of truth. That is, a dualism is formed 
within the logical consciousness. To rest here would bring 
thought to a standstill. All progression of consciousness would 
stop. Somehow the higher dualism thus formed must be trans- 
cended. Again the solution of the difficulty must be found in an 
appeal to appreciation — the aesthetic and feeling consciousness. 
Consciousness in this mode in addition to getting the meaning 
of the object, becomes so overwhelmingly absorbed in that 
meaning — the absorption taking the form of appreciation — as 
to loose itself in it and to neglect altogether the fact of its exist- 
ence as object as over against consciousness as subject. In other 
words, the dualism is transcended by a supreme abandonment 
of consciousness to the meaning of its content in an all absorb- 
ing act of appreciation. Everything that would tend to distract, 
all relativity and determinations of every kind are neglected 
absolutely in the interest and the moment of conscious aesthetic 
appreciation. That is a great triumph for consciousness. No 
longer is it the victim of dualistic embarrassment. It has worked 
its way through the dualism of all preceding modes and now is 
able to gather up in the unity of appreciation all present as well 
as past experiences. 

Consciousness in constructing for itself the meaning of the 
absolute ejects into it the meaning of its own experience; so 
that both truth and appreciation are thought as attaching to 






Ideal Faith: Postulation 31 

the meaning of the absolute as the ideal of worship. The abso- 
lute is able to set up and think as object the truth — herein logical 
— as over against itself; but unconditioned by it, it is able also to 
transcend the dualism formed by itself and the truth in an abso- 
lute experience of aesthetic appreciation. So that consciousness 
is not only itself able to transcend all dualisms in this experience 
but postulates the absolute as having the power to unite all 
things in a supreme act of absolute appreciation. The construc- 
tion thus postulated we shall find in the determination of religious 
faith to be the absolute-self or God, and as such the preeminent 
postulate of ideal faith. 



CHAPTER V. 



MYSTIC AND HYPER-LOGICAL FAITH. 



MYSTIC faith: CONTEMPLATION. 

Jacobi's theory of the rational intuitions of God, and all such 
determinations, are highly mystic and contemplative. The 
truly mystic consciousness as " religious fact" consists in "a 
tendency to arrive at the consciousness of the Absolute by means 
of symbols under the influence of love." 1 Bouchette affirms, 
as something less than the religious fact, that, "mysticism con- 
sists in according to spontaneity a larger place in the intelligence 
than is granted to the other faculties." 2 Victor Cousin without 
a true appreciation of the religious fact speaks of mysticism as 
"the claim of knowing God without intermediary, and, as it were 
face to face; in mysticism, everything that comes between God 
and ourselves hides him from us. " 3 But Recejac emphasizing the 
religious fact of mysticism considers this the best definition: 
" Mysticism is the tendency to draw near to the Absolute in moral 
union by symbolic means." 4 

The method of mysticism is symbolism, mysticism in its con- 
templation of the Absolute is highly symbolic. The mystic 
consciousness constructs its objects as symbols. The relation 
between symbolic representation and the things represented is 
that of analogy. Analogy is the "unique force which renders 
fertile the vast field of mysticism. " 5 Science and philosophy are 

1 Recejac, The Basis of the Mystic Knowledge, p. 62. 

2 Bouchette, Diet, des sciences philosophiques, p. 189. 
a Hist, de la philos moderne, t. ii, IX, le, con. 

4 R6cejac, The Basis of the Mystic Knowledge, p. 64. 
■Ibid., p. 120. 



Mystic Faith: Contemplation 33 

much concerned with symbolic representation through analogy. 
Symbolism is the only expression proper to mysticism. The 
function of the symbolic object is not so much to image or rep- 
resent as to suggest. The symbolic object has about itself a halo 
of sentiment which stimulates consciousness as suggestion to an 
emotional outbreak — joyful, sympathetic or otherwise. Ricejac 
says, "symbolic signs have the same effect as direct perceptions; 
as soon as they have been 'seen' within, their psychic action 
takes hold of the feeling and fills consciousness with a crowd of 
images and emotions which- are attracted by the force of 
Analogy." 1 

Mystic representation is purely subjective as indicated by the 
nature of mystic phenomena — voices, prophetic dreams, ecstasy, 
etc. The "inner voice" of the mystic consciousness results 
from the unity of God and spirit in a relation shut in from all 
sense-reaction or objective determination. In dreams, the 
external perceptions of the waking state are absent and memory 
and imagination must reproduce them in order to give to con- 
sciousness the sense of at least apparent externality. In ecstasy, 
empirical determinations cease to influence consciousness; the 
sense of externality entirely disappears and consciousness be- 
comes wholly absorbed in the divine presence. In all these 
phenomena the moral element is present in varying degree and 
attaches to the sense of freedom as the constant quality of con- 
sciousness. The elements thus described are the dominant deter- 
minations of the mystic faith-consciousness. The principle of 
surrender as in all preceding modes is here the functioning 
process of mystic faith, and contemplation is a form of the 
content of the mystic consciousness. 

Other elements of the mystic-faith content need to be con- 
sidered: for instance, the faith of feeling only, in opposition to 
knowledge; faith as will — the will to believe — without knowledge; 
faith as the faculty of the intuition of the ideal; and faith as union 
of all in the content of a new immediateness; — the aesthetic 
consciousness. 

1 Ibid., p. 134. 



34 The Faith Consciousness 

Faith as feeling takes the form, first of all, of desire. This is 
a state in which aspiration plays an important role. Conscious- 
ness aspires toward an object, a good, such as the heart requires, 
but the mind does not construct. Desire though vague in its 
object becomes a deep passion of the heart which finds satisfac- 
tion only in the grasp of faith upon the infinite, eternal, the per- 
fect. In ecstasy also we have a form of faith as feeling. The 
consciousness of ecstasy is the consciousness of unity with the 
object of faith; there is no intermediary; consciousness sees, 
touches, possesses, is merged in its object. This is not simply 
the faith that believes without seeing, it is the faith that believes 
by touching, possessing, feeling. Consciousness in ecstasy does 
not hold its object through idea — i.e., through knowledge — but 
through feeling; through a perfect unity of consciousness and 
object in feeling; and that feeling is faith. Faith unites without 
absorbing; it merges consciousness in its object, and at the 
same time increases the self-consciousness of each. 

Mystic experience is not knowledge but results from the faith 
of feeling which has in it the mystic element. Mysticism is 
not an expedient to satisfy the demands of the rational conscious- 
ness in its reach after the unknowable. All that it takes from 
the empirical consciousness is the form of its expression — the 
symbolic method or elements. Science as knowledge — that which 
grasps its objects through ideas — and mysticism never meet. 
While mysticism seeks a synthesis of the self and the world, it 
does it through the grasp of consciousness functioning in the 
act of faith characterized by feeling, and not through the under- 
standing. Knowledge as that which synthesizes through ideas can 
never truly grasp first principles; it must be left to the " heart" 
alone to do this, and that through feeling. The mystic con- 
sciousness does not need, however, to disregard knowledge 
through ideas; the fact is that by virtue of its free and naive 
feeling of the absolute, it is the better able when occasion offers 
to synthesize experience through the understanding. 

We come now to the determination of another element in the 
content of mystic faith, namely, faith as will — the will to believe — 
without knowledge. There is a sense in which it is not true that 



Mystic Faith: Contemplation 35 

we can believe what we will, and there is a sense in which it is 
true, that we can will to believe. When belief is defined "as the 
consciousness of the personal indorsement of reality — reality being 
found to be a general term for that kind of experience which 
satisfies one or more of the needs of the individual — it is evident 
that belief is not the feeling of volition or effort. M " It is a feeling 
of willingness or consent, but not of will. We often consent to 
reality against our wills. The effect of will upon belief is really 
the effect of voluntary attention upon one or more of the coeffi- 
cients already mentioned. Attention may intensify an image and 
so give greater sensational or emotional reality. It may also 
dwell upon and bring out certain relational connections of an 
image and so throw the logical coefficient on the side of those 
connections ; it may refuse to dwell upon those relations which are 
distasteful. But it is not true that we can believe what we will. 
To say we believe what we need, is not to say we believe what we 
want." 1 

On the other hand belief used in the sense of mystic faith — 
i.e., knowledge without recourse to ideas — maybe said to be willed 
when by an act of determination consciousness seeks to merge 
itself in the absolute ; the result of such an act being the grasp of 
consciousness in its effort to touch and possess the absolute 
in the synthesis of feeling. Mystic faith, that is, the conscious- 
ness that seeks to merge itself thus does what it does as deter- 
mined by the will. So that in a very general sense, in this mode 
we may say that the dynamic of consciousness is the will to 
believe — i.e., the will to exercise mystic faith, the will that deter- 
mines the mystic faith consciousness to do what it does. While 
the mystic consciousness can hardly be said to decide an option 
between propositions in its effort to possess the absolute yet it 
is true that the same dynamic of volition determines its action as 
when consciousness is required to decide an option. In both 
cases it is the will to believe. Where the option is present the 
principle may be set forth as follows: "Our passional nature 
not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between prop- 

1 Baldwin, Handbook, Feeling and Will, pp. 170-171. 



36 The Faith Consciousness 

ositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its 
nature be decided on intellectual grounds; for to say, under such 
circumstances, 'Do not decide, but leave the question open/ is 
itself a passional decision — just like deciding yes or no — and is 
attended with the same risk of losing the truth." 1 The thesis 
thus stated involves the will to believe as in mystic faith. 

Another element of the content of mystic faith is faith con- 
sidered as the faculty of intuition of the ideal. "Mystic intui- 
tion enables us to perceive the facts of freedom through and 
above the empirical consciousness, in a manner the inverse of 
abstraction. " 2 Imagination serves the mystic consciousness in 
its production of symbols and reason exercises the intuition suited 
to it. Before rational determination of any kind can take place 
there must be the presentation to consciousness of mental images 
— images formed under the pressure of moral influence — which 
constitute the symbols of the meaning underlying the analogical 
representations. Reason exercises intuition proper to the sym- 
bols thus presented. Reason in abstracting from the symbols, 
however, produces that which must not be thought as in any 
way corresponding to objective, empirical knowledge. The 
product is that of the nature of analogy. The mystic purpose of 
reason in analogy is to merge the Absolute in consciousness and 
consciousness in the Absolute. The culmination of symbolic 
representation is the Absolute in consciousness as an abiding 
moral presence. That presence together with the efforts of the 
mystic consciousness in realizing its purpose stimulates inward 
action, strengthens the will, quickens the moral sense and rein- 
forces the natural powers in the making of character. 

The faculty of mystic intuition by which the Absolute is posited 
in consciousness is conditioned by the moral qualities of the sub- 
ject. Only a quickened moral consciousness would seek to merge 
itself in the Absolute; and the Absolute could only be posited 
where such moral qualities exist. Desire also as an internal driv- 
ing passion may be said to condition mystic intuition. Where 

1 James, The Will to Believe, p. 11. 

2 Recdjac, The Basis of the Mystic Knowledge, p. 137. 



Mystic Faith: Contemplation 37 

there is little desire for the Absolute, little effort will be put forth 
in the realization of that desire. But desire intensified into a 
passion will have a decided conditioning and directing influence 
upon intuition. An all-absorbing desire stimulates mystic intui- 
tion to a transcendental reach in the two-fold effort to merge 
consciousness in the Absolute and to posit the Absolute in con- 
sciousness. Mystic intuition is instrumental as the faculty of 
faith in the realization of the Absolute as its Ideal. 

Faith as the union of all in the content of a new immediateness 
— the aesthetic — is a further determination of the experience which 
is hyper-logical rather than mystic. The process by which the 
aesthetic object is taken out of its relations and set up for contem- 
plation is called " detachment.' ' There are two methods of 
detachment; one where the object is, as we say, taken up out of 
its setting and treated or individuated as in itself worthy of 
aesthetic appreciation; the other is where consciousness deliber- 
ately detaches the object from it relations and connections — 
often in an abrupt and broken way — and sets it up for idealiza- 
tion and contemplation without further reference to its contex- 
tual setting. Consciousness in its attitude toward the aesthetic 
object may be treated from two points of view; (1) that of the 
spectator, and (2) that of the artist himself. The consciousness 
of the spectator may be characterized in two ways: (1) there is 
the sense of reading into (einfuhlung) the object elements of 
personification — consciousness gives to the object life, thought, 
feeling, consciousness itself or whatever is necessary to animate 
it; and (2) the sense of oneness (absorption in) with the object — 
consciousness feels itself as one with the object — as actually 
doing the things which before it personified the object as doing; 
consciousness is absorbed, merged in the object — is at one with 
it. In this we see the bridging of the dualism of the self and its 
object, and a perfect unity established. The consciousness of the 
artist may be said to have these elements of aesthetic experience 
in common with that of the spectator, but in addition, something 
more, namely, the feeling of appreciation which comes from the 
sense of having actually produced that which gives so much real 
.aesthetic pleasure. In mystic contemplation consciousness pro- 



38 The Faith Consciousness 

ceeds in a quasi-aesthetic way and merges itself by faith into unity 
with its object of love and worship. 



II 



HYPER-LOGICAL FAITH! THE HYPER-LOGICAL EXPERIENCE AS 
UNION OF FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

The early type of conscious experience may be characterized 
as an immediacy of feeling; consciousness at this stage is in the 
pre-logical mode; the power of logical or rational determination 
has not yet developed. Memory, imagination, the conscious- 
ness of self, the power to construct objects of thought, to objec- 
tify and apprehend the world, the dualisms of " inner-outer, " 
"mind and body," "self and not-self," the power of rationality, 
of contemplation, — none of these have yet arisen, and conscious- 
ness knows not itself or its environment; it simply is, and lives 
in an immediacy of mere feeling. Prof. James has character- 
ized this earliest stage of consciousness as "pure experience," 
"Pure experience," he says, "is the name which I give to the 
original flux of life before reflection has categorized it. Only 
new-born babes, and persons in semicoma from sleep, drugs, 
illness or blows can have an experience pure in the literal sense 
of a that which is not yet any definite what, though ready to be 
all sorts of whats; full both of oneness and of manyness, but in 
respects that don't appear; changing throughout, yet so con- 
fusedly that its phases interpenetrate, and no points, either of 
distinction or of identity, can be caught. True experience in 
this state is but another name for feeling or sensation. But the 
flux of it no sooner comes than it tends to fill itself with emphases, 
and these to become identified and fixed and abstracted; so that 
experience now flows as if shot through with adjectives and 
names and prepositions and conjunctions. Its purity is only a 
relative term, meaning the proportional amount of sensation 
which it still embodies. 

" Far back as we go, the flux, both as a whole and in its parts, 
is that of things conjunct and separated. The great continua 



Hyper-Logical Faith: Faith and Knowledge 39 

of time, space and the self envelopes everything betwixt them and 
flow together without interfering. The things that they envel- 
ope come as separate in some ways and as continuous in other. 
Some sensations coalesce with some ideas, and others are irrecon- 
cilable. Qualities compenetrate one space, or exclude each other 
from it. They cling together persistently in groups that move 
as units, or else they separate. Their changes are abrupt or 
discontinuous; and their kinds resemble or differ; and, as they 
do so, fall into either even or irregular series. 

"In all this the continuities and the discontinuities are abso- 
lutely coordinate matters of immediate feeling. The conjunc- 
tions are as primordial elements of 'fact' as are the distinctions 
and disjunctions. In the same act by which I feel that this 
passing minute is a new pulse of my life, I feel that the old life 
continues into it, and the feeling of continuance in no wise jars 
upon the simultaneous feeling of a novelty. They, too, com- 
penetrate harmoniously. Prepositions, copulas, and conjunc- 
tions, 'is', ' isn't/ 'then/ ' before/ 'in/ 'on/ 'beside/ 'between/ 
' next, ' ' like, ' ' unlike, ' 'as/ ' but, ' flower out of the stream of 
pure existence, the stream of concretes or the sensational stream, 
as naturally as nouns and adjectives do, and they melt into it 
again as fluidly when we apply them to the new portion of the 
stream." 1 Thus we see that consciousness begins its life with, 
and in, an immediacy of feeling. 

But with the development of consciousness in experience there 
soon spring up the various powers mentioned above — memory, 
imagination, the "inner-outer" and "mind and body" dualisms, 
consciousness of self, objectivity, knowledge, rationality — so that 
we are able to track out with some degree of certainty the vari- 
ous progressions or strands of consciousness, as well as the modes 
through which consciousness must pass in its developing move- 
ment. It is to be noted that consciousness through experience 
very soon gets out of its first immediacy of mere feeling and passes 
into the world of "dualisms," which, as development continues 



1 James, Journal of Phil., etc., Jan. 19, 1905, p. 29. See Baldwin, Thought 
and Things, I, p. 45. 



40 The Faith Consciousness 

become more and more hardened into constructions of greater 
and greater practical utility. The history of the ''dualisms/' 
and consequent embarrassments of consciousness in its various 
progressions, and the study of the development of consciousness 
in its manifoldness is the work of Genetic Logic; 1 this, however, we 
shall not attempt here; we wish merely to point out the fact that 
consciousness begins with an immediacy of feeling but soon 
passes out of it into the " mediateness " of thought, in which 
sphere it meets with the embarrassment of dualisms. Now the 
question is, Does consciousness ever come to the place in its 
development where the possibility of dissolving or bridging all 
dualisms is reached? The answer is that we believe it does, and 
that that stage is the mode we are calling the "hyper-logical" — 
an experience constituted by the union of faith and knowledge. 

Very early in consciousness there begins to appear in a quite 
germinal way a strand or progression which has in it the promise 
of a higher and richer immediacy; we refer to that which appears 
first as mere play, uninformed, impulsive and uninfected by 
thought or rationality. Later this progression takes the form 
of "semblance" and we see the beginning of art; with this the 
idealistic and aesthetic-consciousness emerge. In the aesthetic 
experience the dualisms through which consciousness has passed 
and in which it may at the time find itself are bridged. 2 

The full aesthetic experience is not possible in the pre-logical 
modes; this becomes the more evident as we seek to determine 
the marks or criteria of the logical consciousness. "It is plain 
that the criterion of the logical as such is found not alone in the 
matter thought about, but in the way we think about it ; not alone 
in the factors determining the "what" of which the object is 
made, but in the factors of control which give answer to the 
question "how" it is made. Looked at broadly, the mode is one 
of a dualism of self and the objects of its experience; logical 
objects, are therefore, only those objects which are meanings to 
a subject of experience. Again, logical objects are those which 

1 See Prof. Baldwin's work, Thought and Things, which the following 
exposition follows. Use also is made of his unpublished lectures on Aesthetics. 

2 For the aesthetic experience see Section I, this chapter. 



Hyper-Logical Faith: Faith and Knowledge 41 

issue from the redistribution and organization of all simpler 
meanings in a whole context of experience. They are individ- 
uated as in this organization; as related, in meanings of general, 
universal, particular and singular force. Here, evidently, the 
the characteristic mark is the elevation of relationship — actual 
presence of contemporaneous, like, different and otherwise re- 
lated wholes — into a single whole exhibiting these relations. 
Relation is individuated as a meaning or object of thought, one 
whose abstraction from the body of the former objective con- 
tinuum or complication, it is the special interest of this mode 
to achieve. Finally, the logical function is that in which these 
two specifications are given — a subject of experience, and a 
related objective whole which is experience to such a subject. 
This function is that to which we have given the name judgment. 
Judgment is the psychic control, issuing from what is now a self, 
exercised upon those meanings of relation which constitute 
ideas about things. m 

It would seem from what is necessary in order to constitute an 
object, an object for the logical consciousness, that the aesthetic 
experience is impossible to the pre-logical consciousness. In 
fact we have just seen that the immediacy of consciousness in 
the beginning — in the pre-logical mode — is the immediacy of 
mere feeling, and is not aesthetic. The aesthetic experience would 
seem to be a provision for immediacy at the top rather than at 
the bottom. Consciousness must first develop its dualisms and 
pass through them before the parallel lines of progression and 
development, as object or meaning on the one hand and con- 
sciousness on the other, can be brought together in a higher and 
richer immediacy — "higher" because it rests upon the founda- 
tion of dualistic and logical experience, and " richer" because out 
of this same experience it is highly informed. 

While the aesthetic experience is above the logical — is hyper- 
logical — at the same time consciousness profits by having passed 
through the logical; and the gain is manifest in the enriching of 
the aesthetic experience. At every stage in conscious progres- 

1 Baldwin, Thought and Things, Vol. I, p. 271. 



42 The Faith Consciousness 

sion the aesthetic experience partakes by way of enrichment of 
the aggregate of past experience up to that point. A meagerly 
developed and uninformed consciousness will not have as rich 
an aesthetic experience as the highly developed and well informed 
consciousness will have. Thus we see the justification for calling 
this the " hyper-logical experience;" it is not an experience for 
the logical consciousness as such, but is an experience for a con- 
sciousness which has been greatly enriched by the logical. 

In the hyper-logical experience so described we have a union 
of faith and knowledge — meaning by faith a certain dispositional 
attitude of consciousness, an openness of consciousness toward 
experience ; and by knowledge experience itself. In the aesthetic 
experience the object — already experienced and, therefore, 
knowledge — and the open consciousness — faith, dispositional 
and volitional — are brought together and merged into one. So 
that the mode of consciousness in which the aesthetic experience 
arises may be called from the point of view of this thesis, Hyper- 
logical Faith. 

In concluding the constructive portion of Part I, Non-Religious 
Faith, let us notice a few points by way of summing up. We have 
found throughout the progressions of the faith-consciousness that 
the faith principle consists fundamentally in surrender to an 
absent object, postulated in the higher modes as ideal. Faith 
we have defined as " trust," confidence — trust that reaches 
beyond rational grounds in its effort to grasp its object. Belief 
as a "personal endorsement of reality," or "as the consciousness 
of the presence of a thing as fitted to satisfy a need," does not 
involve the faith principle. The need for faith may disappear 
and belief take its place, but faith cannot be said prior to this to 
be belief. The faith-consciousness does not begin with reality 
or give it a "personal endorsement" as present, but rather postu- 
lates an ideal which it hopes is real but has no way of proving; but 
in the absence of proof it "trusts" in it as real and "surrenders" 
to it. Later the ideal of faith comes to be thought and believed 
in as real. Faith then may be said to give it a kind of imagina- 
tive reality. Conviction as to such a reality would involve the 
elements of the belief-consciousness. The faith-consciousness 



Hyper-Logical Faith: Faith and Knowledge 43 

in constructing its ideal sets before itself an end for the will and 
thus influences it in surrender. In this faith embodies the will; 
on the other hand it may be said that will is directed by faith, 
as when it becomes the dynamic of consciousness in its effort to 
merge itself in its object. Farther it may be said that faith 
involves the emotional and dispositional attitudes of the self. 



Part II 
RELIGIOUS FAITH 

APPENDIX I 

AN ABSTRACT OF PART II 

Part II of the Dissertation 1 is a treatment of Religious Faith; 
while Part III deals with the Use of the Faith Principle in Modern 
Philosophy, with special reference to Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, Paul- 
sen, James and Royce, closing with a chapter on Criticism and 
Conclusion. 

Part II is an attempt to sketch in a genetic way the movement 
of the religious faith-consciousness through its various modes or 
progressions. Chapter I is a study of the Genesis of the Religious 
Faith-Consciousness in The Sensuous-Self Mode. Chapter II is a 
treatment of The Supersensuous-Self Mode as Rational or Deistic. 
Chapter III is a study of the Immanence-Self Mode; and Chapter 
IV of The Spiritual-Self Mode. 

By way of summing up, the following concluding passage of 
Part II, may be taken as briefly setting forth the determinations 
of religious faith throughout the four stages of conscious develop- 
ment : In the Sensuous-Self Mode consciousness may be thought of 
as having the attitude of presumption of nature — the sense of 
mere reality-feeling in nature's presence. The meaning of this 
mode is largely sensational and anthropomorphic. In the Super- 
sensuous-Self Mode consciousness has the power of detachment 
or subjectivity, it rests its determinations upon rational proof; 
in this we have a return to acceptance or belief without trust; 
faith is grounded in dogma. In the Immanence-Self Mode con- 
sciousness constitutes its constructions by postulating ideal worth 

1 A bound manuscript copy of the L-ntire Dissertation is on file at the 
Johns Hopkins University. It is hoped that a full treatment of Religious 
Faith may be published in the near future. 



Appendix 45 

beyond logical proof. It assumes an Ideal-Self for worship, and 
trusts that which it cannot guarantee by belief. In the Spiritual- 
Self Mode the Ideal-Self construction is highly universalized and 
personalized as within immediate reach of consciousness. The 
process of its construction is that of postulation beyond the 
guarantee of proof. Throughout the entire movement of conscious 
progression we find the dominant quality or attitude of the faith- 
consciousness to be that of "surrender. " In the higher religious 
modes we find the surrender of faith to involve the postulation 
of meaning by trust beyond that guaranteed by belief. In the 
postulate of spiritual or mystic faith which is contemplative and 
aesthetic we have the unity of both trust and belief. The result- 
ing character of consciousness is that of immediateness, oneness 
of appreciation and feeling with the Spirit-Self. The Spirit — or 
Absolute — Self is thought or postulated as Absolute Ideal-Self, 
as Absolute-Consciousness merged in the object of its creation — 
including finite selves — through the unifying principles of love, 
feeling, appreciation. The Absolute Experience, by which all 
dualisms are bridged, is primarily aesthetic. 

In our study of the faith-consciousness throughout its progres- 
sion, it has been gratifying to find such a rich and important field 
for thought and investigation. In our genetic treatment of the 
subject we have been dealing — though only in an introductory way 
— with a very vital phase of conscious function and content. We 
shall find in a large treatment of "Genetic Faith" that all philoso- 
phy may be subsumed under the head of the "function and 
content of the faith-consciousness;" at least we shall find that all 
philosophy must be more or less mystic, and that every philosophy 
should have a place in its system for faith. 



LIFE. 

William Wilberforce Costin was born in Baie Verte, N. B., 
Canada, December 19 ; 1871. His preliminary education was 
received in the public schools of his county, and the Collegiate 
School of Fredericton, N. B. After spending two years at Mount 
Allison Male Academy he matriculated at Mount Allison College, 
Sackville, N. B., in 1891, where he was graduated with the degree 
of B. A. in 1895. 

The years 1895-06 and 1897-08, he spent in study at Boston 
University School of Theology. The year 1896-07, he was pastor 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church in County Line, N. Y. In 
the spring of 1898 he began his ministry in Maryland, and in 
1900 was received on trial in the Baltimore Annual Conference 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1902 he was ordained a 
Deacon, and in 1904, an Elder. 

In the fall of 1900 while pastor of the Woodside Methodist 
Episcopal Church, Md., he began graduate study in the Colum- 
bian (now George Washington) University, Washington, D. C, 
where he was graduated with the degree of M.A. in 1901. Dur- 
ing the year 1902-03 he pursued graduate study at the same 
University. The year 1903-04, he spent doing special work in 
the Oriental Seminary of Johns Hopkins University. 

In the fall of 1904, he began graduate study at the Johns Hop- 
kins University, chosing Philosophy as his principal and Experi- 
mental Psychology and History of the Ancient East as his sub- 
ordinate subjects. 

His ministry in Maryland has comprised the following pastor- 
ates: Patapsco Circuit 1898-99, Leonardtown 1899-1900, 
Woodside, 1900-01, Boundary Ave. 1901-02, Hunt's 1902-05 
City Station: First Church, Assistant Pastor, 1905-06, Oxford 
1906-08, and Chester Street 1908. 

He has attended the lectures of Professor Paul Haupt and Dr. 
Foote, in special studies, and of Professors J.M.Baldwin, Stratton, 



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Life 47 

Johnston, Griffin, and Doctors Ladd- Franklin, Farrar, Baird 
and Riley, in graduate work, to all of whom he would express 
grateful appreciation, especially to Professor James Mark Bald- 
win for the inspiration of his instruction, personality, advice and 
encouragement. 



